It’s the day after Christmas, and I’m just finishing up the painting of Henry Jack when George stops by.
“Wow,” says George in his high, nasally voice. He’s wearing a beret and he tips it, studying my painting with his head tilted back.
“Wow,” he says again. “That’s really good, Miss Lily. You’re very talented.”
“Thanks. I’ve been painting all my life.”
“Maybe I could pay you to paint me. Me and Boldo, my lion!”
I bite my lip.
“I’m . . . kind of scared of lions,” I say.
“Oh, Boldo’s a big pussycat!” George says. “He wouldn’t hurt you, I promise. When my grandkids come to visit, they play with him as if he’s just a huge overgrown kitty.”
I shrug.
“Okay,” I say. “I could do that.” I’m trying to conquer my fears.
Queenie Grace is standing in the shade of the nearby tree, and George waves at her.
“Hello, sweetie,” he says.
I swear her lips curl into a smile and she raises her trunk. Queenie Grace walks with those huge feet, lifting them delicately like an enormous clumsy ballerina, in our direction.
“Lily here is just like you,” George says to the elephant. “A talented artist. I have a bunch of Queenie Grace’s paintings hanging in my place. She’s famous in the elephant art world.”
“Obvious that we’re related then, huh?” I ask, and George laughs.
“Yep,” he says. “Something very similar in those eyes.” He looks from side to side, checking out my eyes and then the elephant’s.
Henry Jack and I laugh.
“And the cool thing is that my grandpa taught us both to paint,” I say. “He taught me, and he taught Queenie Grace.”
“Bill lives on,” Henry Jack says, “in your paintings. Yours and Queenie Grace’s.”
“You’re looking extra red today,” George says to Henry Jack. “You been using your sunburn cream?”
“Yes, Mom,” Henry Jack says, rolling his eyes. “I swear, you’re as bad as her.”
“But not nearly as pretty!” jokes George, and we laugh again. Even Queenie Grace seems to chuckle, in that snoring snuffling kind of way.
“So I wanted to check out the cigarette burn,” George says, and Henry Jack points.
“Right back there,” he says. “You can’t miss it. And it was definitely him. It was Mike.”
“Do you have a step stool?” asks George. “Or a ladder?”
Henry Jack stands up from the lawn chair, stretches, and then he just lifts George up, hands circling George’s pudgy waist. George inspects the red circle on Queenie Grace’s skin.
“What a jerk,” he mutters.
“I know,” Henry Jack says, lowering George to the ground. “He’s staying with Charlie the fire-eater now. Violet kicked him out.”
George glares in the direction of the fire-eater’s house.
“Neither one of those guys is worth anything,” he grumbles. “They deserve each other.”
Just then, Henry Jack notices my painting. He stops dead, steps closer, stares at the picture, takes another couple of steps. He reaches out to touch the edge of the canvas, gently, eyes fixed on my painting of him. He looks as if he’s seen a ghost.
“Holy showman,” he says quietly. “So that’s what I’d look like, if I was just a normal boy.”
“Well, you are a normal boy,” I say. “But that’s just you without the wrinkles. That’s all.”
Henry Jack looks at me, and his eyes fill with tears.
“Thanks,” he says. “I always wanted to see that.”
“No wonder Bill bragged so much about you, Lily,” says George. “You’re one amazing girl.”
I toe the ground with my shoe. I’m not used to so many compliments coming at me from all directions.
“Thanks,” I say.
“Have you ever painted your grandpa?” asks Henry Jack. “If you haven’t, you should.”
“I haven’t,” I say. “But that’s a good idea. I’ll paint Grandpa Bill.”
So the rest of the day and into the night, I paint. I don’t paint from a picture; I just paint from memory. I know my grandfather by heart: every line, every smile, every tuft of fluffy white hair. Blue eyes, thin slant of nose, lips that never knew how to frown. White stubble scruffy on his cheeks, a black mole over his straggly left eyebrow. A small slice of scar on his chin, the tiny pit on the right side of his nose where he once had skin cancer.
And when it’s finished, it’s Grandpa Bill. Grandpa Bill on paper, in paint, come to life once again by the love in my hand.
Grandma comes into the bedroom, wearing her baggy yellow SpongeBob nightshirt, just as I’m finishing.
“Oh,” she says, stopping. “Oh, Lily. It’s perfect. It’s him. Scars and all.”
I step back, squint.
“It’s him, kind of. But not really. Because he can never really be here again,” I say.
Grandma pulls me into a hug.
“He’s here,” she says. “I can feel him. It’s like magic.”
And then I realize why I like to paint. It is exactly like magic: taking something blank and empty and filling that space abracadabra with color and life and light. I want to explain all this to Grandma, the wonder of it all, but I can’t find the right words. There are some things in life that just don’t fit within twenty-six letters of the alphabet.
“Thanks for the paints,” I say.